Prof. Jennifer Gibbs co-authors an article in the latest issue of Small Group Research titled “Exploring Affordances of Email for Team Learning over Time.” Drawing on theories of team learning, group development, and technological affordances, the authors provide a multi-method case analysis of emails and interviews that explores how and when team learning occurs.

Mary Chayko has published a new book on what it means to live in a digitally connected society. Superconnected: The Internet, Digital Media, and Techno-Social Life brings together insights from such disciplines as sociology, communication, psychology, and media, information, and technology studies to explore the impact of the internet and digital technology on our everyday lives, from the way we construct identities and cultures to the way we work, play, learn, govern, and fall in love. The new book was also launched at the New Books Reception at the Eastern Sociological Society conference in Boston on March 17, and Rutgers University’s Celebration of Faculty Books at Alexander Library on April 12.

“Disruptive Course Design: Integrating Social Technologies and Quality Matters (QM) Best Practices in Hybrid/Online Courses,” on March 23, at the NJEDge 2016 Faculty Showcase Conference (with Denise Kreiger). The paper and presentation focused on the course design process which was based on Quality Matters (QM) standards and focused on incorporating social technologies for student learning such as Twitter, Storify, and discussion boards. They also gave a tour of the Rutgers QM-certified hybrid course in the learning management system.

Prof. Joyce Valenza published “School Libraries Transform” in American Libraries. As a faculty member in a preservice program, and as a school librarian for more than 25 years, she writes about the role of school libraries in student empowerment.

Prof. Chirag Shah gave an invited talk on “Information Fostering: Being Proactive in Information Seeking” at University of Texas Austin on March 4. In the talk, he discussed how to analyze a search process in an exploratory search task to be able to predict its likelihood of success, and how to switch the search trail of a possibly failing search with a one that could improve the chances of success dramatically.

Prof. Marie Radford, Prof. Chirag Shah, and several Ph.D. students published an article titled, “Shared Values, New Vision: Collaboration and Communities of Practice in Virtual Reference and SQA” in JASIST. This investigation of new approaches to improving collaboration, user/librarian experiences, and sustainability for virtual reference services reports findings from a grant project. Findings indicate that participants usually refer questions from outside of their area of expertise to other librarians, but occasionally refer them to nonlibrarian experts.

Phil Napoli co-authors, “Portrait of the Online Local News Audience” in the journal Digital Journalism. Drawing upon data from six focus groups across three communities, this paper highlights three collective narratives on local news audience practices generated by participants.

Prof. Mary Chayko was interviewed by radio station New Jersey 101.5 on emojis and new digital communication norms, including research from her forthcoming book, Superconnected: The Internet, Digital Media, and Techno-Social Life, on March 2.

Prof. Mary Chayko gave a guest lecture on conducting qualitative research digitally for Dr. Christena Nippert-Eng’s graduate course “Digital Ethnography” at Indiana University’s School of Informatics and Computing. The lecture and Q and A session was conducted via Skype on March 3.

Prof. Matt Weber and a Ph.D. student are announced as Knight Foundation Innovation Fellows for their project, “Digital Journalism and the Challenges of Managing a 21st Century Newsroom Workforce.” This project examines the changing composition of newsroom workforces by analyzing the work histories, educational backgrounds, and employee skillsets of newsroom employees. The results of this study will provide publishers and managing editors with specific recommendations regarding recruiting strategies, target skills, and educational backgrounds that will complement existing newsroom workforces.

Prof. Matthew Weber was recently awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation(NSF Award #1624067) to support a series of upcoming data science workshops focused on training graduate students to conduct research using archived Internet data. The grant, from the Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS) Directorate, provides $29,883 to support graduate student travel to the workshops. The two workshops will be held in March in Toronto and in June in Washington, D.C.